This book is so cute! I love the illustrations and the text is just right for my kids. Just today Sophie said, "Goodnight, Toot. Goodnight, Puddle." : ) Just out of the blue. As you can see, it's written by Holly Hobbie...and I looked her up and that's her real name. For some reason I have a deep down love for her work because for one of my birthdays when I was a little girl my mom spent hours making me a Holly Hobbie birthday cake. Ah, the memories.
Back to the book. In the story, Toot is adventurous. He likes to travel and do things around the world. Puddle likes to stay home at Woodcock Pocket. While Toot sees the world and sends Puddle postcards from different locations, Puddle has his own adventures at home, such as ice skating and pancakes with fresh maple syrup. Yesterday we read the book and took turns putting stickers on our laminated world map.
I thought it would be fun to send postcards to some of our missionary friends in different parts of the world. I had printed a postcard template on some cardstock a long time ago and just held on to them (I got them off the martha stewart website). I cut them out and let the kids decorate the blank sides with stickers. I guess that's ok with the post office since they let us mail them : ). I let Sophie help me write parts of the letters (handwriting practice, right?! : )).
Here we are at the post office.
Some other activities we've done are on the National Geographic Kids website. I was able to print some coloring pages and an adventure log that has some neat things the kids can write when they take an adventure. There are also some Toot and Puddle videos and games on there. I had some trouble viewing the videos, but it may be an issue with my computer. The games were cute. One shows different instruments, food, and other things that kids do in other countries.
I also found a lesson plan that's called, "Let's Take a Trip!" It describes what to do for the lesson and has some free printables that include "plane tickets" you can personalize, some warm climate clothing and cool climate clothing and suitcases. It's really cute. I would suggest pre-cutting some of the pieces for little kids. We didn't finish cutting everything out today, but we did finish the suitcases. I'll probably go back and cut some things out for them.
The Nick Jr. website also has the fun Toot and Puddle games and a few other activities. If you have that channel on your tv, I've heard that the Toot and Puddle show comes on. You can find some Toot and Puddle videos on YouTube as well.
There are so many activities you could do with this book! We would love to skype with some friends in other parts of the world. I also wanted to cook some recipes from some different countries for the kids to try...we haven't gotten to that yet. But, who knows? We might could go eat Chinese food tomorrow?! : ) If we had an Indian restaurant, that would be fun, too, because Toot visits India.
We are going to try and have school tomorrow and finish up. There are other Toot and Puddle books but this is the only one I've read. I hope you enjoy!
~Stacey
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